The one theory to rule them all, and in about two minutes. Discover Magazine recently held a user-submitted video competition with the goal of explaining String Theory to the average person. The competition presented the difficult challenge of completing this task within a two minute time frame. The project was successful, and Discover received more than a few quality entries.
If all of the videos are viewed, a greater understanding of String Theory as a
whole can be attained. However, in the two minutes they had, the winner covers the subject matter in a manner that most people can follow. The video below has Brian Greene announcing the winner of the official competition and why he chose the video that won. Enjoy!
Other than the official
selection, the common user base was allowed to vote on which video was
the "user's choice". The admiration from the populous was surprisingly won
by simple family with a great grasp on the topic of math. The
choice was more than likely related to the family's better delivery, and
mastery of the language used to deliver the message.
For those not familiar with String Theory, this is a must watch series of videos and is well worth anyone's time. This a great opportunity to understand what may be humanity's next great leap in science.
After running across an A.P. newswire story about Comcast's active blocking of P2P services last week, it seems the stakes are being raised against America's largest cable provider. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's investigations indicate that Comcast is indeed utilizing Sunvine hardware and technology to subvert Gnutella and Bittorrent traffic. Strangely Lotus Notes is also affected, which I'm sure makes Comcast's Business Service users extremely happy. As a result, it looks like this could open the door to some rather hefty class action lawsuits against Comcast, for deliberately crippling their own service to reduce costs. Cnet reports...
"The blogosphere is abuzz over an Associated Press investigative article this past Friday on the subject of Comcast's BitTorrent filtering. Briefly, there were a number of articles in early September which alleged that Comcast was using some fairly sneaky techniques to throttle BitTorrent traffic on its network. Comcast, of course, denied any such behavior. It took a month and a half, but both a mainstream media news organization as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have tested and confirmed the previously reported claims. It turns out that Comcast is not only throttling BitTorrent, but Gnutella and, strangely, Lotus Notes are also suffering.
Comcast's PR people gave me the following statement on Monday: "Comcast does not block access to any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent...We have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications."
The FastSilicon.com crew has been curious to know how many Xbox 360 units have
been shipped back to Microsoft for repair. To get an idea, we
recently went to our local UPS store to evaluate the situation. Several workers described a steady stream of Xboxes flowing through
the store daily. Each day, the store processes between six and ten Xbox 360s. This does not include repaired boxes received for return delivery to the consumer. A local worker, who wished to remain anonymous, has
been shipping these Xboxes since he has worked there. He described Microsoft customers who have come in with their 3rd, or even 4th, Xbox 360. This is not an uncommon occurrence. He has experienced more than a few tense and angry
customers due to this unfortunate circumstance. No employee has worked there long
enough for us to determine how long this has been happening, however, it became apparent that this has been going on for quite some time.
The question becomes, why does Microsoft keep sending out the same
defective Xbox? It may be refurbished and in working condition, but it
is the same defective design that is going to fail for the same reason.
Some users have gone through as many as seven
Xboxes, with an average turn-around of three weeks. A few have even reported
turn-around times of up to 10 weeks. Worse than that, Microsoft does not
reimburse users for their Xbox Live subscription down-time beyond a month.
Microsoft needs to get their act together. How are customers going
to react to the next Xbox? Microsoft already has trust issues with
their customers. This will only serve to aggravate, or destroy, their already tenuous relationship with gamers. Product reliability should never be a coin toss. Hopefully, Microsoft will somehow push their
65nm Xbox sooner. The blow-back from the holiday season will be severe if the same issues extend beyond the coming year. Continued design flaws and poor customer service may open the door for either of the other competitors to step up.
The number one selling musician of all time online, with 10.5 million downloads, is who? None other than Utada Hikaru. As a Japanese pop singer, very few people in the west even know who she is (Editors Note: Apart from, perhaps, myself; I am a huge fan). If you have ever played Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 or watched anime, you have likely heard her music. She is no lightweight in traditional media sales, with 7 studio albums and 24 singles to her credit. The Internet is a bigger world than the industry at large would seem to reflect. AnimeNewsNetwork reports...
Of the 10.5 million record-breaking song downloads that Hikaru Utada has sold so far this year, "Flavor of Life (Ballad Version)" (a song inserted into the Hana Yori Dango 2 [Returns] live-action drama adaptation of the popular shōjo manga) has accounted for 7,306,000 since January 15. "Kiss & Cry," a theme song for the Freedom Project anime and commercials, has sold 842,000 times since April. The "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)-2007 Mix" used in the Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone trailer has sold 276,000 times since June 29. "Beautiful World," the ending theme of the actual movie, has sold 881,000 times since July 23. Finally, "This is Love," a song first released in 2006, has sold 733,000 times in 2007. Source: BroadBand Watch
The band Radiohead recently released their new album "In Rainbows" in a bold and surprising new way. They have made their entire album available for download before the release of the physical cd. It is available on or before the 3rd of December, 2007. As an added bonus, they have made the cost of the album a personal affair. Essentially, the only cost required is the payment processing fee of 45p, or around 90 cents U.S.. Beyond the payment fee, the listener is free to pay whatever he or she feels the album is worth. The success of this approach to marketing has yet to be revealed, however, it appears very promising. Some of our own friends have paid well over a 100 US dollars for this album, in support of the band's decision. Even the underground piracy world of torrent sites are reacting to this news with respect and admiration, prohibiting the album's availability on their sites.
With the current distribution model, artists end up with very little of gross sales. Bands can even end up owing the record company after everything is said and done. This new system Radiohead has implemented allows the money to go directly to the band. This is not like Apple, either, where the money goes to Apple, record company, and then artist, in descending order. Wierd Al is one of those artists feeling the burn of Apple's I-Tunes music price distribution scheme. He even has his album availible on his myspace account. Many other artists are considering following Radiohead's lead with their new albums.
There have been some complaints in the
community about the format that the music is presented in. Unfortunately, the
music is in a 160KB/s mp3 format. It would have been preferable
to use 192KB/s format, and extremely nice if they chose 320KB/s. This
format choice has made some consumers second guess a download purchase, opting to wait for the limited edition box set. Most will pay for the album through the download, and "illegally" download the higher quality versions when they are released. Either
way, we at fastsilicon.com admire Radiohead's pioneering move that will hopefully turn the music scene on its head.
Buy the album here , even if it is just to support this kind of distribution model.
With
the Radeon HD 2900 XT outperforming the Geforce 8800 GTX with the release of
new ATI drivers, it’s time to see how it performs compared to a Geforce 8800
Ultra. Our friends over at TweakTown.com have done just this with interesting
results. Of course, we at FastSilicon.com feel the Nvidia offerings are better
at this juncture, but for those hardcore ATI fans, the 2900 XT packs a hard
punch at a lower price point. Combine this with Crossfire, and you’re looking
at one sexy ATI system.
AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card really does
continue to show how it can be a dominant card in the market and that the next
offering from AMD/ATI should be a strong competitor, we think.
Sure, Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 Ultra continues to win but at pricing starting at
around or sometimes over 40% of the HD 2900 XT, you would expect it too as
well. You throw in the fact that the Intel P35 is the new “in” chipset (which
currently only supports Crossfire for its dual graphics system) you really have
to look at the HD 2900 XT as the graphics card of choice.
ASUS have got a fabulous HD 2900 XT package as well - the inclusion of
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. alongside the normal Black Box is excellent and at least you
feel you’re getting something extra for your money.
We Stumbled across an interesting report about the GA-P35-DS3 not passing EMI compliance. We happen to have one in our labs, but it has no effect on anything else. Not that we would expect anomalies with the levels still fairly low. Newer boards are emerging that are packed to the brim with features and bandwidth, companies might have to start considering these tests more as a design obstacle when enough EMI is generated to possibly start affecting other components in the case. Not to mention pacemakers and other medical devices are susceptible
THESE DAYS, Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI) compliance
is required for nearly all electronic stuff sold in the EU, US and
most of Asia. This encompasses various US, FCC and CE tests, among
others. So, the user's assumption would be that all such products
do pass the tests.
Well, not always - Taiwan's ETC (Electronic Testing Center) labs
sometimes comes across major brand products which don't exactly
pass some of the EMI tests.
A fairly recent example is Gigabyte's GA-P35-DS3 mainboard,
based on the Intel's P35 chipset, one of which may have been lying
in waste, dropped on the floor of Taiwan's spanking new 300 km/h
Shinkansen high speed train somewhere between Taipei and
Kaohsiung...
Once again, we find an overwhelmingly blatant illustration of how and why the DMCA is a bad law. "Creation Science Evangelism", a right-wing fundamentalist christian group led by convicted felon and tax-evader Kent Hovind, has manipulated a loophole in the DMCA, forcing Youtube to remove videos that are in the public domain. Why? Simply because the CSE does not like what their detractors have to say.
The way the DMCA is structured, companies like Youtube are required by U.S. Law to remove content immediately, without the necessity for review. This places the (rather expensive to fight) legal burden on the alleged infringor of the DMCA , in this case The Rational Response Squad. Their account was terminated as a response to rebuttal of Kent Hovind's insanity .
the video below is not recommended for younger audiences
Without fail, the video we embedded was taken down after a certain time. It was also for the same for the same falsified reason. The whole community is getting very upset with this. Hopefully people will write their congressmen in order to solicit some change in this law that is being used for censorship and other illigitimate reasons.
We recently discovered a new website, TV-Links , which hosts links to several thousand streaming movies, television shows, anime, cartoons, documentaries, and music videos. It is not difficult to surmise why its traffic has skyrocketed in just a couple of months. Alexa has this baby ranked #214 in the world. Questionable legality? Perhaps. Popular? DEFINITELY. Welcome to the machine, MPAA...
Trent Reznor, leader of band Nine Inch Nails and iD Software soundtrack guru, went public last week with some rather choice words for the recording industry and its treatment of customers in the land down under. At a concert in Sydney, he said this from the stage;
"Steal it. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it
to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another
these mother****ers will get it through their head that they're ripping
people off and that's not right."
His words make further comment from us unnecessary.
